Anthropometric measures and biomarkers for cardiovascular disease risk factors: evidence from a study of Polish adults participating in the cardiovascular disease prevention program (CHUK)

The Polish national program for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CHUK) uses the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) index which evaluates the upcoming risk of death from cardio-vascular causes for a 10 year period, based on information such as age, systolic blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking and gender. The aim of this study was to determine health indicators in the population enrolled in the program and identify the relationships between the cardiovascular risk factors. The data was collected from 303 participating individuals; 172 women (aged 35 to 58 years) and 131 men (aged 31 to 60 years). The SCORE index showed a statistically significant positive relationship between CVD and the male gender. The higher frequency of 3–4% and 5–9% for SCORE index in men indicates that they were at a higher risk of cardiovascular incidents. The increased risk of a cardiovascular incidence in men was associated with a higher mean arm circumference, waist circumference, BMI, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglyceride and fasting glucose. HDL cholesterol and heart rate were statistically significantly higher in women. Among the study subjects, the most common parameters above the normal range were elevated LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol. The highest correlation with the SCORE index was observed for the age of the subjects, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, regardless of gender. The results showed that biochemical parameters and blood pressure were above normal values in almost all subjects. Men had significantly less favorable parameters compared to women of similar age range. According to the SCORE index, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol sig-nificantly increased the risk of cardiovascular incident regardless of gender. Women were characterized by a lower risk of cardiovascular incident according to the SCORE index.